


Cumberland Gap

by shewasjustagirl



Series: The Nashville Sound [2]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Heavy Drinking, Inspired by Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 01:58:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12098208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewasjustagirl/pseuds/shewasjustagirl
Summary: Inspired by the song Cumberland Gap by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit





	Cumberland Gap

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: Not every fic in this series (if any?) will be like the story in the song. They're inspired by the lyrics and mood and feel of the songs.
> 
> I highly encourage checking out the album The Nashville Sound and seeing how amazing the storytelling is over there, for this song in particular.

Whiskey wouldn’t make it better. He knew that when he got started. But here he was, throwing back some perfectly acceptable, middle-class brown liquid.

It was just an offhand comment. It wasn’t meant the way he took it. But it had been a long week, and he was feeling sensitive. It struck right at the heart of him. At who he was and wanted to be. So here he sat.

What did they know, anyway? His family wasn’t wanting for anything. He’d managed to make them comfortable as a comedian. An entertainer. On the internet, of all things. Not as an engineer or a lawyer or any of those safe, reasonable choices his father would have made for him.

_Silly._ What the fuck was wrong with being a little silly? People _need_ silly sometimes to get through their day. That’s exactly what he and Link offered people. Respite. A laugh. A community of people who didn’t think there was anything wrong with being a little silly from time to time.

He wasn’t cut out for a desk job, anyway. He’d go out of his mind sitting around staring at lines on a computer. He could do the math. But it wasn’t alive. Not the way his connection to their audience made him feel. 

The people who stayed back home would never have the opportunities he had. This was where he was meant to be, no matter how much it broke his momma’s heart to have him living all the way across the country.

Was he supposed to be stuck in time? Swallowed up behind state lines? That would have been the easy choice, staying in the known. In the well-tread paths available to men like him and presented to the children in his hometown. He took off in a direction no one he knew ever had before. Due west. 

He looked down at his hands as he ordered another round. They were soft. Manicured, even. Not that a law professor had a particularly physically strenuous job. Not that callouses could have made him any more of a man. Not that he would have gotten many as a civil engineer. 

He’d chased a dream. That hadn’t been easy, either. Where was the credit for taking that chance? Was it less brave when the risk involved two sweet, young families falling apart?

As his vision started swimming, he questioned his place on the stool. He could be excused one night hitting the hard stuff. He knew he could. But maybe this insecurity, this feeling that he owed it to someone to show just how much of a grown man he really was, maybe _that_ was silly. 

He closed his tab and tipped the bartender well, knowing he’d seemed like he planned to stay all night. 

As he pulled his phone from his pocket, he smiled at the thought that he didn’t bear this weight alone. Opening the Messages app, he pulled up the number of his best friend. 

_You were right, buddyroll. Feel like being my DD?_

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love any feedback! Your comments and kudos would be very much appreciated! <3
> 
> And come find me on Tumblr as [clemwasjustagirl](http://clemwasjustagirl.tumblr.com/) if you're into that kind of thing. (Hit me up if you want to fangirl over Jason Isbell's music!)


End file.
